Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has recently made significant strides in the realm of virtualization technology by releasing their GPU-IOV Module as open-source. This innovative module is tailored for virtualization applications utilizing AMD's Instinct accelerators, marking a pivotal moment in the integration of GPU capabilities into virtualized environments. Moreover, AMD has outlined plans on their roadmap to extend virtualization support to their popular Radeon discrete GPUs, a feature that has been highly anticipated by users and developers alike.

The AMD GPU-IOV Module is designed for the Linux kernel and facilitates SR-IOV (Single Root I/O Virtualization) based hardware virtualization. This is achieved in conjunction with the KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) hypervisor, allowing for a more efficient and flexible virtualized computing experience. The GPU IOV virtualization provided by the module includes several critical capabilities such as the configuration and enablement of virtual functions (VFs), GPU scheduling for world switch, hang detection, FLR (Function Level Reset) processing, and the handshake communication between physical functions (PFs) and virtual functions (VFs).

Initially, the AMD GIM driver has been developed for the Instinct MI300X hardware, and it has undergone testing on Ubuntu 22.04 LTS with the ROCm 6.4 software stack. For enthusiasts and developers eager to explore this new module, the AMD GIM code is currently accessible on

Robert Jackson